ZebraDomain.com

In recent years some people have argued that since single word .com domains have all but run out and good two word domains are disappearing faster than beer in a college party its time to start looking for longer domain names. Today the average domain name is said to be about 11 characters (interestingly ZebraDomain is 11 characters, well 14 if you count the .com TLD), so keep that in mind when you go looking for your next domain name.

Of course as time goes by domain names will inevitably get longer but each additional character means a substantial increase in the number of potential domain names so this process will take time.

Moving away from combinatorics, some people have suggested that it might be time to look for longer domain names. What is a long domain name? well, if the current average is around 11 characters, anything above that should be considered long (or at least above average). Of course some people have decided to take this advice to an extreme like:

thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com

or

llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochuchaf.org.uk

or

iamtheproudownerofthelongestlongestlongestdomainnameinthisworld.com

These are all gimmicks as no sane person will ever bother typing them. So out of the 63 max characters on a domain name (67 if you include the TLD) what can still be considered reasonable?

Lets look at some examples:

renewableenergyworld.com – This is a 20 character domain name (on a very hot topic). In this case not only is the name too long it is also fairly difficult to spell (renewable).

digitalcamerareview.com – Is 19 characters but is also much easier to spell.

technologyreview.com – Is 16 characters (still about 5 characters above average) but a significant improvement (going down to 2 words) with very simple spelling.

These are just 3 examples. It might be possible to find a 20 character domain name which is still simple enough and memorable but for the most part I would suggest looking for names no longer than 16 characters or at worst just under 20.

Of course all of the above is relevant to .com domains. Different rules apply to different TLDs (and for the most part you will be able to find shorter domain names on any non .com TLD).

To sum things up – try and follow these basic guidelines:

1. Shorter is still (usually) better.
2. The average domain name has about 11 characters so try not to move to far away.
3. If you do decide to pick a longer domain name look up to around 16 characters and in any case try to avoid 20+ character domains.

Everybody knows that finding a good domain name is important. But actually finding one isn’t simple especially if you are looking for a new .com domain name.

Here are a few tips that might help you find what you are looking for:

1. Know thyself – Define for yourself clearly what you are looking for. Is it a personal website, a news site, does it focus only on one topic or maybe several, if it’s a business – what products are you going to sell.
2. Know your competition – If this is a commercial website its important to know who you are up against. When it comes to picking out a domain name you don’t want your name to be too similar to your competition, otherwise readers might get confused and you will have a hard time branding your business.
3. Pick up keywords – After you figured out who you are and who’s your competition you need to pick up a few keywords to start play around with. This could be very simple (like pizza – if this is your intended business) or slightly more complex (like software integration).
4. Pick a TLD – if you are starting a local business (maybe outside the U.S.), looking to start a website for an organization or supply some sort of a mobile service it could be a good idea to look for a domain name which doesn’t necessarily ends in .com (here is a list of other TLDs). However in most other circumstances .com is still the best way to go.
5. Look around – now its time to start looking around. The most straight forward way many people use is think of a name and see if it is available. You can do that by looking on domain name registrar websites such as GoDaddy.com, namecheap.com, Moniker.com etc.
6. Use thesaurus – so far everything was more or less straightforward, however chances are that other people already came up with all the great names you just thought about. Your next step will be to try and expend your keyword search terms. You can start by opening a real paper thesaurus and look for relevant terms or use an online thesaurus (here are three options thesaurus.reference.com, merriam-webster.com and visualthesaurus.com).
7. Use website name generators – if everything so far didn’t do the trick you can try playing around with some robotic domain name generators. Basically what these sites do is use one or more keywords supplied by the user along with an internal database of frequently used terms and try and create new domain names. The algorithm will then check for the availability of these domains in various TLDs. Here are a few name generators: nameboy.com, domainsbot.com, bustaname.com and makewords.com.
8. Look for expired domains – if even the robots have failed you there might still be a few options left. One of those is to search for expired domains. This isn’t easy and the few good expired domain names that reach the market get snatched usually very quickly. However if all else failed it might be worth checking out. Here are a few expired domain websites: justdropped.com, networksolutions.com and domaintools.com.
9. Get expired domains –buying an expired domain could be tricky as the good ones usually get snatched very quickly (simply too many people around the world are going over those about to expire domain name lists). Some users have suggested using special services which can secure a domain name for you the minute it becomes available. This comes at a price (typically several dozen dollars or so) but it could mean the difference between getting this great domain name and having the other guy get it. I do suggest you practice caution when using these services as scams are common. Here are a few such services suggested by readers from around the web (didn’t try any of them yet) snapnames.com, clubdrop.com, and pool.com.
10. Buy aftermarket domains names – buying second hand domain names might be the last thing you will want to look at (after all why pay hundreds of dollars for something you can buy for less than $10) but in some cases it might be worth it to check this option as well. Some internet centric businesses are dependent on having very specific domain names, others might feel that having a three latter .com domain name might help their business and don’t mind spending the extra $20k+. In some cases buying a good domain name might also be a good investment (after all nobody is making any new good .com domains). There are several aftermarket websites where you can buy second hand domain names including afternic.com, sedo.com and namejet.com.

I will explore many of these points in more depth later on.